Welcome to Texas justice: You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Bradley nomination for forensic chairman dead?

The Austin Statesman and other news outlets today reported that the Senate has severed Williamson County DA John Bradley's nomination from other members of the Forensic Science Commission because Democrats have enough votes to block him from being considered on the floor under the Texas Senate's 2/3 rule and have told the chair of the Nominations Committee they intend to do so.

It's not over, though, because the Lieutenant Governor intends to have Bradley back in for some personal lobbying: "Dewhurst said that after he talks with senators who are blocking Bradley’s nomination, 'it may be that we’ll want him to come in and talk with some of them one on one.' After that, he said, “we’ll see where we are on the votes,” when asked when Bradley’s name may come up for a vote," reported the Statesman's Mike Ward.

Still, Bradley's nomination is on life support and will die if Democrats stick together. Quite extraordinary. Though Grits editorialized against his nomination before the committee hearing, I can't say I expected him to go down.

21 comments:

AWESOME!! all i can say is - DEMS stay together and oppose this political hack!! he makes a joke of the Commission and should not be allowed to continue directing it. to be a true TEXAN means to have integrity - he has none!

Texas Democratic state senators have at least temporarily succeeded in blocking the nomination of John Bradley to the Texas Forensic Science Commision. We need everyone to call your state senator and tell them not to confirm Bradley.

JTP said...What is Dewhurst's stake in the deal with trying to keeping Bradley on board? Is he just anti-innocence or what?

3/02/2011 12:42:00 PM~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Wasn't Dewhurst the Lt. Gov. when Willingham was murdered? All of these people have blood on their hands. This cover-up is both desperate and unprecedented.

JTP/1:09, FWIW, Dewhurst let a lot of innocence legislation pass the Senate in 2009 that then died in the House Voter ID chubfest. And he deserves behind-the-scenes credit for helping improve the exoneree compensation package last session. So I wouldn't attribute his statements to opposition to innocence reforms, certainly based on his recent record.

IMO his motive is simple partisan politics. Bradley is a prominent, countywide elected official in a suburban growth corridor and conservative bastion, plus JB's an ally to the Governor, a long-time GOP insider, and rumored future appointee to the Court of Criminal Appeals. His brother, David, is on the State Board of Education, where's he's been leading a similar ideology-over-science fight regarding what goes into textbooks. (It's sort of the family niche, their Mom notwithstanding.) There are folks on the right who just react poorly at a gut level to pointy-headed scientists who they see as pushing their views on evolution, global warming, etc.. So it's not that surprising that criticisms of the sorry state of much forensic "science," which real scientists say has never been subjected to rigorous review (as might happen, say, in medicine or particle physics), would generate a similar reactionary response.

There's nothing to "keep the lid on" in regard to the Willingham case. He was found guilty by a jury, exhausted all of his appeals and habeas claims; and he was executed. There was plenty of other evidence of guilt to support the verdict, not to mention his near "death bed" admission of guilt to his ex-wife. Ultimately, all of the expert opinions regarding the cause of the fire are just that--opinions. Some may be based upon more contemporary scientific standards but not even the esteemed $30,000 Beyler can definitively say the fire either was, or wasn't, intentionally set. About the most the Forensic Science Commission will ever be able to say in regard to the Willingham case is that the investigators may not have utilized sound methodology in their investigation. But apparently, even reasonable minds can differ about that.

The original concept behind the Forensic Science Commission was good. Who can argue with the goal of improving the quality of forensic science in our courts? But in filing the Willingham complaint, the New York Innocence Project (that TEXAS Sen. Ellis chairs the board of directors of) immediately made this ALL about the death penalty and whether Texas (and the governor) had executed an innocent. As Grits himself has lamented on this blog, that immediately sucked all of the oxygen out of the room (no pun intended). Every action by the FSC (and reaction by the governor) from that point on has to viewed through the prism of the contentious death penalty debate. Even if Bradley is ultimately replaced, I'm not sure the genie can ever be put back in the bottle and the orignal mission of the FSC effectively accomplished. It may just be time to start over.

If there was "nothing to keeping the lid" on the Willingham case, we would not be having this discussion.

You may not like it, you may even raise some valid points but Bradley's appointment has EVERYTHING to do with scuttling the work of this commission allowing the death machine to continue and those who dance in it to keep on keepin on.

Anon 4:21 - I just can't stand it when people who must protect the death penalty at all cost talk about all the "other evidence of (Willingham's) guilt". If the fire wasn't arson, there ISN'T any other evidence of "guilt" that has any validity, because there was no crime and therefore no crime to be guilty of.

And you can bash Beyler all you want, frankly his opinion doesn't matter that much to me. Hurst is the guy. He's pure science with no political ax to grind - he's testified for both sides over his lifetime and rejects roughly 2/3 of the requests for help he gets as being arson - and he says flat out it wasn't arson.

6:21, if you don't like Hurst or Beyler, there are seven other national experts who've come out in agreement, including the guy who writes the textbook the state fire marshal trains on.

Speaking of which, the Fire Marshal couldn't find a scientist willing to support the Willingham investigation before the FSC - they sent a lawyer instead. See here for coverage of the actual FSC hearing on the topic and details on why the investigation was gravely flawed, even by the standards of the day.

I consider myself to have conservative leanings. But I do believe Mr. Bradley is way to right for even my taste. I believe for whatever reason he was not interested in the truth in the forensics case. No, I do not know what the truth is but thanks to this man I never will.

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